‘The Bible’s meaning for
today cannot result automatically from the correct use of a set of hermeneutical
principles.’[i]
Richard
Bauckham

‘Pentecostals … would
want to approach interpretation as a matter of the text, the community, and also
the ongoing voice of the Holy Spirit.’[ii]
Rickie Moore

The theological interpretive
strategy being presented embraces a dialogical interdependent relationship
between the Holy Spirit, Christianity’s sacred Scriptures, and an actual
ecclesiastical narrative tradition in the hermeneutical process of the making of
meaning.[iii]
The readers in community, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are interdependent
dialogical partners participating in a tridactic negotiation for theological
meaning. The theological interpretive strategy being proposed emerged from
Pentecostal praxis and theological engagement with Scripture and the Spirit.
Thus the strategy is a product of an ecclesiastical narrative tradition—a
Pentecostal community. However, as a strategy for theological interpretation it
may not be unique to Pentecostalism; furthermore, I believe that as a strategy
for theological interpretation it could be beneficial to other Christian
traditions.

The theological strategy
affirms the important contributions that the Holy Spirit and Pentecostal
community bring to the interpretive process.[iv]
As a result, there will be a shift from the more modernistic emphasis on the
individual hermeneut and his commitment to an acceptable and correctly
applied scientific method of biblical interpretation to a primary emphasis upon
the Christian community as the context through which interpretation takes place.[v]
The community’s story is the primary filter through which interpretation takes
place.[vi]

The strategy does not pretend
to be a full-blown theory of interpretation, nor will it desire to become a
static methodological procedure. Nevertheless, the strategy is a product of a
Christian community and based upon the biblical model of Acts 15, The Jerusalem
council.[vii] The hermeneutic is conversational in nature and embraces a tridactic
negotiation for theological meaning. The Bible, the Holy Spirit and the
Pentecostal community are actively engaging each other in the conversation.
Meaning, then, is arrived at through a dialectical process based upon an
interdependent dialogical relationship between Scripture, Spirit and community.

This tridactic conversational
approach to ‘meaning’ is necessary because all forms of communication are
underdeterminate; that is, a listener or reader is needed to complete the
communicative event, hence participating in the production of meaning.[viii]
This does not imply that the biblical passage can mean whatever a community
wants or desires it to mean. The written passage does offer guidance and
resistance to the readers. There is a dialectical interdependent relationship
between the written text and the community of readers. Thus, there exists an
actual communication event that takes place, as the text is read/heard. The text, which in this case is a biblical passage, desires to be
understood by the readers in a Christian community.[ix]

The biblical passage is at
the mercy of the community. However, a Christian community should give the
biblical passage the opportunity to interact with the readers in such a way that
the passage fulfills its dialogical role in the communicative event. This would
be the case for the Pentecostal community because she recognizes the Bible as
the penultimate authoritative written testimony of Divine revelation - the
inspired word of God. Furthermore, the community believes that the Spirit’s
inspirational relation with Scripture can cause it to speak clearly and
creatively as word of God to the contemporary Pentecostal community’s situations
and needs. Hence the Pentecostal community will read the Bible as sacred
Scripture that speaks to the community’s current needs, thus enabling the
community to live faithfully before and with the living God.

The theological strategy is self-consciously a
narrative approach to the understanding and the making of theological
meaning. I am referring to narrative in two ways: (1) as an overarching
theological category, and (2) as a method for biblical interpretation. Narrative
as a theological category is a way of grasping and making sense of the whole of
God’s inspired authoritative witness—Scripture.[x]
By this I mean to highlight the importance of understanding Scripture as a grand
meta-narrative with the Gospels and Acts as the heart of the Christian story.
The Social Trinity is the central figure of Christianity, with Jesus Christ
being the very heart of the story; therefore a narrative theology will emphasize
the priority of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its significance for the
Christian community and the world.[xi]

The Pentecostal narrative
reading strategy is a “text centered” and “reader oriented” interpretive method.[xii]
Knowledge as meaningful understanding will be rooted in and related to human
life because ‘the only sort of (theological and theoretical) knowledge that
really counts is knowledge grounded in life.’[xiii]
‘Meaning, therefore, is no longer seen in terms of an original “cause” or
ultimate “effect” but in terms of relationship.’[xiv]
This meaning is arrived at through a dialectical process based upon an
interdependent dialogical relationship between Scripture, Spirit and community.

The possibility of humans
misunderstanding texts and resisting the Spirit further complicates the
interpretive process. Hence, John Goldingay’s warning should be heeded—‘those
who pretend to be objective and critical and then find their own concerns in the
texts they study need to take a dose of self-suspicion.’[xv]
Interpreters must practice a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ and a ‘hermeneutic of
retrieval’[xvi]
as they negotiate creative and constructive meaningful readings of Scripture
grounded in the Pentecostal community’s desire to live faithfully with God. In
the remainder of this paper I will outline this theological interpretive
strategy that embraces a tridactic negotiation for meaning between the biblical
text, the Holy Spirit and a Pentecostal (or Christian) community.[xvii]

The Contribution of the
Biblical Text

In order for a
communicative event to take place there must be space between a text, a stable
but underdeterminate entity, and a reader in community. The reader in community
interprets the written text in an attempt to understand the text, thereby
completing the communicative act. Semiotics is a theory that emphasizes both
the space between the reader and a text and the necessary dialectical link
between the reader and the text in the production of meaning.

Semiotics

Semiotics is concerned with
the study of signs as conveyers of meaning.[xviii]
Signs are not limited to a written language but include a great diversity of
human (and animal) activities.[xix]
The focus here, however, is with written communication. Semiotics as it
relates to linguistics[xx]
is concerned with both the ‘speech-act’, whether written or spoken, and the
‘language’ in which the speech act functions. Abrams writes that the aim of
semiotics ‘is to regard the parole (a single verbal utterance, or
particular use of a sign or set of signs) as only a manifestation of the
langue (that is, the general system implicit differentiations and rules of
combination which underlie and make possible a particular use of signs).’[xxi]
In other words the language (langue) ‘is a system of signs and laws
regulating grammar and syntax--a sort of “canon” establishing guidelines for
meaning.’[xxii]
Meaning in the sense of what a ‘speech-act’ is saying grammatically is not
viewed as a referential sign about what it is referring to historically.[xxiii]
Speech (parole) ‘is the act executing the given possibilities
residing within a system of signs.’[xxiv]
In order for communication to transpire, both the writer/speaker and the
reader/listener must have some competency in the language (langue).
Therefore, Semiotics emphasizes the transaction of meaning between texts and
readers, thus involving the reader in the production of meaning in order to
complete the communication event.

The Bible is a collection
of written speech acts. Semiotics, therefore, can provide helpful insights and
guidance for a theological hermeneutical strategy which appreciates the
formational potential of texts. I do not want to confuse Semiotics with
theological or even biblical hermeneutics. Instead I desire to approach a
Pentecostal hermeneutical strategy through Semiotics[xxv]
because Semiotics recognizes the necessary distance between the reader and the
text by emphasizing the important contributions of both the text and reader in
the making of meaning. This space between the reader and text creates a real
conversation. Therefore a Semiotic interpretive strategy will be the most
conducive for Pentecostals (and I would suggest Christians) because it allows
for an open interdependent dialectic interaction between the text and the
reading community in the making of meaning. However, the Holy Scripture in its
final canonical form provides the primary arena in which the Pentecostal
community desires to understand God.[xxvi]

From a Semiotic viewpoint
the text contains latent but nonetheless potent cues as to how it desires to be
understood. The way to ‘see’ and ‘hear’ these cues is through a close
(formalistic) analysis of the text illuminated by the social cultural context in
which it was written. The Pentecostal hermeneutic would affirm the importance
of the genre of the passage along with the grammatical rules of the language to
which the specific speech-act belongs. The text would be analyzed however from
a more formalistic perspective while affirming the importance of the social
cultural context in which the text came into existence. Meaning is negotiated through the conversation between the text,
community, and the Spirit. The world behind the text informs but does not
control the conversation.[xxvii]

In short, Semiotics affirms
that a dialectical interdependent link exists between the text and the readers.
Semiotics also views the text as an underdeterminate yet stable entity that
affirms the reader as a necessary component in the communicative event and the
making of meaning. The text is to be respected as a dialogical partner in the
communicative event. Thus semiotics is a helpful critical aspect of theological
interpretation.

The
Contribution of a Pentecostal (Ecclesiastical) Community

Moral reasoning is always
rooted in a particular narrative tradition.[xxviii]
Interpretative methods and readings are dependent upon a hermeneutical
community. In the negotiating of meaning, one’s community is an important and
necessary component of the hermeneutic.[xxix]
In order to produce a “Pentecostal” reading of Scripture, ones identity must be
shaped by the Pentecostal community.

I recognize that all
interpretive readings are culturally dependent and inherently contain the
ideological perspective(s) of the community. Furthermore both the interpretive
method and the community readings are anchored into particular socio-cultural
modes of existence. Hermeneutical approaches reflect the socio-theological
perspectives of those using them. This ecclesiastical strategy affirms this
reality, thus the importance of practicing a hermeneutic of suspicion and
retrieval.[xxx]
Also this strategy affirms a praxis-oriented hermeneutical stance because the
interpretive activity is generated in the present concrete experience of living
in the Pentecostal community that is animated by the Holy Spirit. The community
moves towards the biblical text with specific concerns and needs. The community
expects the Scripture(s) to speak to its present situation. The community also
listens for the voice of the Spirit and looks for the signs of the Spirit as it
engages conversationally with Scripture.

An Ecclesiastical Hermeneutical Community: A Pentecostal Community

The Pentecostal theologian
must be entrenched within a Pentecostal community and in tune with the concrete
needs and aspirations of the Pentecostal community.[xxxi]
This strategy affirms the necessity of the hermeneut living among the
Pentecostal community. Therefore, the hermeneutical emphasis will fall
upon a Semiotic and Narrative approach with the context of the reader in
community providing the hermeneutical filter and foil for understanding and
completing the communicative event.[xxxii]

The Pentecostal hermeneut who
is educated by the academy must also be a participant within the Pentecostal
community; that is, she should understand her Christian identity to be
Pentecostal. In order to be included as part of the Pentecostal community, she
must embrace the central narrative convictions of Pentecostalism. The
Pentecostal story must be interwoven into her personal story. This does not
imply that one cannot be concerned about the larger Christian community or
attempt to understand the Scripture from a different perspective or interpretive
strategy, but it does mean that one’s identity is shaped and formed by
participating in a Pentecostal community.

In order for one
to be a Pentecostal hermeneut (whether lay, clergy, educated or non-educated),
one needs to be recognized as a Pentecostal. The hermeneut must share her story
(testimony) and receive the important ‘amen’ of affirmation from the community.
Thus, one will need to have a clear and convincing testimony concerning his/her
experiential relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. The ‘Full Gospel’ serves
as the central narrative convictions of the Pentecostal community. The Full
Gospel or Five-Fold Gospel is a relational doxological articulation of the
redemptive work of Jesus. Jesus is Savior, Sanctifier, Spirit Baptizer, Healer
and Soon Coming King. This does not mean a Pentecostal hermeneut must have
experienced every dimension of the Full Gospel, but she must be willing to
participate in the Pentecostal story.[xxxiii]
In this way, the theologian is an extension and participant of the community not
an isolated individual reader.

The sharing of testimonies
always involves and requires discernment from within the community. Therefore,
one is not a Pentecostal hermeneut because one uses a Pentecostal method because
there is no such thing as a Pentecostal method; rather, one is a Pentecostal
hermeneut because one is recognized as being a part of the community. The
community, along with its concerns and needs, is the primary arena in which a
Pentecostal hermeneut participates. The community actively participates in the
Pentecostal hermeneutic not passively but actively through discussion,
testimony, and charismatic gifts.[xxxiv]

Generally, academically
trained biblical and theological hermeneuts will have an active leadership role
in the Pentecostal community, whether it is as a pastor, teacher or lay leader.
One needs to appreciate that most Pentecostals who are a part of academic
educational communities are credential-holding ministers of Pentecostal
denominations.

The Pentecostal
hermeneutic argues that the place to hear the present Word of God is the current
context in which one lives. The past words of God (Scripture) then speak a
present Word of God, which is to be believed and obeyed. The point of view of
the reader/interpreter is not to be dismissed but embraced. This does not mean
that Scripture cannot resist the reader’s point of view. It does mean that the
readers’ community plays a significant role in what is found in Scripture and
then what will become theologically normative for the community.

Pentecostals recognize that
Scripture is authoritative voice in the community and able to transform lives as
it is inspired anew by the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals, like Christians in
general, would want to hear the Scripture on its own terms, first and foremost.
Yet, the hearing of Scripture is filtered through the Pentecostal narrative
tradition. As a result of this, there is an interdependent dialogical and
dialectical link between the community and the Scripture with the goal being
communal and societal transformation.

Narrative Criticism: The Overarching Method

The readers (hermeneuts) in
community select certain methods which they use in order to interpret texts.
One of the important contributions of the hermeneut is the interpretive method.
The method is not isolated from the person but becomes a tool that the hermeneut
uses in the creative negotiation of theological meaning.

A narrative approach allows
for the dialectic interaction of the text and reader in the negotiation of
meaning. Pentecostals by their very nature are inherently storytellers. They
primarily transmit their theology through oral means.[xxxv]
They have been conditioned to engage Scripture as story. The Bible is
understood as a grand story—a metanarrative.[xxxvi]
Thus a narrative theological approach with a bent towards reader response would
enable the Pentecostal community not only to critically interpret Scripture but
also to let Scripture critically interpret them.

Narrative Criticism’s concern
is similar to the semiotic concern to keep a dialectic link between the reader
and the text. This dialectic link
between the narrative text and the reader insists on the reader responding to
the text in ways that are signaled by the text for the production of meaning.
Therefore, the empirical contemporary reader in community is an active
participant in the production of meaning. The meaning(s) of the text is not
simply found in the text, nor is it simply found in the reader but comes into
existence in the dialecticinteraction of the reader with
the text.[xxxvii]

This dialectic interpretive
tension is not simply a linear move of meaning from text to reader, as if in the
classical literary interpretive sense that meaning is inherently and entirely
found in the text. Nor is the reader given freedom to construe meaning
in the way that meets her creative concerns, which from that perspective allows
the reader to stand over and against the text.[xxxviii]
Once again, meaning is produced through the on-going interdependent dialectical
interaction of the text and reader, both of which are necessary for a creative
negotiation of meaning. Hence, neither the reader nor the text is to dominate
the negotiation of meaning. The reader and text must work together in
actualizing the potential meaning(s) of the text through the process of reading.[xxxix]
The reader in community and the text make different kinds of contributions to
the production of meaning, which allows the communicative event to succeed.
This interdependent dialectical and dialogical interactive process is reinforced
by Narrative Criticism’s concern to follow the unfolding plot and its
interaction with characters, settings and events in the story world of the
narrative. This also allows for Narrative criticism to spill over into Reader
Response Criticism.[xl]

In sum, Narrative Criticism
offers a text centered interpretive approach that allows for the socio-cultural
context in which the text was generated to inform the contemporary reader, but
in no way does it allow for it to dominate or control the interpretation of the
text. Instead, the text is appreciated for what it is–a narrative; thus, the
interpreter is concerned with the poetic features and structure of the story as
a world in itself. The text invites the reader to negotiate meaning through a
dialectical process of reading. Narrative critics are concerned to follow the
responsive clues of the narrative from the perspective of its implied reader.
Yet, the implied reader (whether a hypothetical construct of the text or a
hypothetical construct in the mind of the empirical reader) necessitates the
involvement of the empirical reader in the production of meaning. This affirms
the importance of Reader Response Criticism. A Narrative-Reader Response
approach would allow the text to give formative guidance without determining the
actual response of the readers.

The imagination of the real
reader shaped in community is vital to the reader’s ability to comprehend the
text. In this way, a Pentecostal would read the Bible as she would any other
text or experience, namely, through the utilization of her imagination[xli]
shaped and formed in the Pentecostal community by means of its narrative
tradition and with her ears open to the Spirit.

The community, along with
Scriptures’ potential polyvarient understandings, becomes the necessary
participant in the ongoing interpretive process. The community engages the
biblical text and so produces meaningful readings in ways that attempt to
maintain the interdependent interactive dialogical relationship between the text
and the community. The community, not an isolated reader, will negotiate the
meaning through discussion and discernment as a direct address to the
community. In doing so, the community will remain more faithful to the
interpretive process of the first century Christian community then the isolated
individual of the Modern age.[xlii]
As Richard Hays demonstrates through examining the Apostle Paul’s writings,

Our account of Paul’s interpretive activity has discovered no systematic
exegetical procedures at work in his reading of Scripture. … his [Paul’s]
comments characteristically emphasize the immediacy of the text’s word to the
community rather then providing specific rules of reading. … Paul reads the text
as bearing direct reference to his own circumstances… [and] that Scripture is
rightly read as a word of address to the [present] eschatological community of
God’s people.[xliii]

In short, this Pentecostal
hermeneutical strategy will embrace a narrative critical methodology while
simultaneously affirming the Pentecostal community as the arena for the making
of meaning. Interpretation is the result of a creative negotiation of meaning,
and this meaning is always done from the particular context of an actual ‘reader
in community.’ Croatto argues that
the Bible is a present living word for the believing community. ‘As a result,
what is genuinely relevant is not the “behind” of a text, but its “ahead,” its
“forward”- what it suggests as a pertinent message for the life of the one who
seeks it out.’[xliv]
Hence, it is the reading of the Scripture from a new praxis and in community
that opens up valid yet multiple meanings of biblical texts.[xlv]
Therefore, a Pentecostal reading would not only pay attention to the poetic
features and the structure of the text, but would also fully affirm the
importance of the contemporary Christian community’s participation in the making
of meaning. The Pentecostal model would desire to keep the making of meaning in
creative interdependent dialectic tension between the text and the community,
which is always moving into new and different contexts. In this manner, the
making of meaning is a constructive ongoing cooperation between the text and
community of faith. The Pentecostal community’s theological conviction that the
word of God speaks to the present eschatological community collapses the
distance between the past and present allowing for creative freedom in the
community’s acts of interpretation.

The primary constraint that
contemporary Pentecostals employ in order to limit their interpretive freedom is
their tradition. This constraint is theological more so than methodological.
Pentecostals would shout a hearty amen to Hays’ argument that all of Scripture
must be interpreted in light of and as a witness to the Gospel of Jesus.
‘Scripture must be read as a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. No reading
of Scripture can be legitimate if it fails to acknowledge the death and
resurrection of Jesus as the climatic manifestation of God’s righteousness.’[xlvi]
Therefore a theological constraint provided by the reading of Scared Scripture
as God’s story with an emphasis upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ provides a
stability for the community in the making of meaning.

The Contribution of the
Holy Spirit

The theological
interpretive strategy, I am proposing is a tridactic negotiation for meaning. I
have described the contributions of the biblical text and community. Now I will
address the contributions of the Holy Spirit to the hermeneutical process.

Explaining the
contribution of the Holy Spirit is more difficult due to the realization that
the Holy Spirit, although affirmed as being a present and active personal
participant in the interpretive process, is nonetheless dependent upon the
community’s sensitivity and Scripture’s perspicuity. The Holy Spirit’s voice is
heard in and through the individuals in community as well as in and through
Scripture (which may be words of correction, reproof or even a word of
resistance to a certain biblical statement).[xlvii]
The Spirit’s voice is not reduced to or simply equated with the Biblical text or
the community, but is connected to and interdependent upon these as a necessary
means for expressing the past-present-future concerns of the Social Trinity. The
Holy Spirit has more to say than Scripture yet it will be scripturally based.
The community must read and discern the signs and the sounds of the Spirit
amongst the community in dialogical relationship with the Scriptures.

The role of the
Holy Spirit in the hermeneutical process is to lead and guide the community in
understanding the present meaningfulness of Scripture as the community
theologically understands its relationship with the Social Trinity.[xlviii]
This ministry of the Holy Spirit is an extension of the ministry of the
incarnate, crucified, ascended, and glorified Christ.[xlix]
Therefore human societies in general and the Christian community in particular
have not been abandoned by the living presence of God as a result of the
ascension of Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit, believed to be a real personal
participant in the life of the Christian, enables the Christian in community to
live faithfully with the living God as the community continues the mission of
Jesus in the world.[l]
Hence the Spirit does speak and has more to say than just Scripture.[li]
This requires the community to discern the Spirit in the process of negotiating
the meaning of the biblical texts as the community faithfully carries on the
mission of Jesus into new, different and future contexts. ‘The Spirit’s
intervention and interpretivework is
crucial if the followers of Jesus are faithfully to carry on the mission Jesus
gives them.’[lii]
For this reason, the voice of the Spirit cannot be reduced to simple recitation
of Scripture; nonetheless, it will be connected to and concerned with Scripture
because Scripture is God’s story for all creation—especially humanity.
Furthermore, this implies that previous theological understandings (in the form
of official ecclesiastical doctrines) may need to be revised in the ongoing
light revealed by the Spirit to the ecclesiastical community(s).

The Spirit’s Voice Heard In and Through A Pentecostal Community

Pentecostals
desire the Holy Spirit to speak, lead and empower them in fulfilling the
missionary task Jesus mandated to his followers. Pentecostals seek the Spirit’s
guidance in understanding Scripture and life experience in order to live
obediently with God. The Spirit’s voice is most actively discerned through the
various gifts manifested in the community.

The Spirit’s Voice In the
Community.

The worshipping community
provides the primary context in which the Spirit’s manifestation takes place.
Personal testimonies, charismatic gifts, preaching, teaching, witnessing,
serving the poor and praying are all acts of ministry that provide opportunities
for the tangible manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The community is involved in
discerning the authenticity of these manifestations and activities. The
activities of the Pentecostal community’s participants are ‘assessed and
accepted or rejected.’[liii]
Many times a belief and/or activity will be tolerated until more witness from
the Spirit by means of Scripture and/or personal testimony can be given. The
community provides the context for the manifestation/voice of the Spirit to be
seen/heard and discerned.

Pentecostals will
invite the Holy Spirit to manifest in various ways in the community. The
purpose of these manifestations and community activities is to empower, guide,
and transform the individuals in community so that the Pentecostal community can
faithfully follow the Lord Jesus Christ. This requires the community to discern
the Holy Spirit in the midst of the community’s activities and manifestations
and follow the Spirit’s guidance. The individual’s claim of being led by or
speaking in behalf of the Spirit will be weighed in light of Scripture,
community’s theological convictions and other individual testimonies. Thus the
community must interpret the manifestations of the Spirit.[liv]
‘Experience of the Spirit shapes the reading of scripture, but scripture most
often provides the lens through which the Spirit’s work is perceived and acted
upon.’[lv]
The Christian community provides the dynamic context in which the Spirit is
actively invited to participate in the theological negotiation of meaning.

Discerning The Spirit’s Voice
Coming From Outside the Community.

The Pentecostal story has
placed missionary outreach as the very heartbeat of God’s dramatic story and
thus the primary purpose of the Pentecostal community’s existence.[lvi]
Pentecostals have and continue to embrace with great vigor the missionary task
of reaching all people with the Gospel. They proclaim the ‘Full Gospel’ to all
who will listen in prayerful hope that non-Christians will respond to God’s
gracious salvific invitation to embrace Jesus and join the Pentecostal
community. This passion for missional activity has encouraged Pentecostals to
take the Gospel to the ends of the earth and thereby spreading the ‘Full Gospel’
into regions outside of their cultural context and geographical locations.
Pentecostals (especially those discerned to have the ‘missionary call’ but also,
in a limited sense the local layperson) evangelistically engage and confront
other individuals in community. Pentecostals do not stand from a distance but
get involved with other people while retaining their allegiance to their
Pentecostal community. The engagement with other communal stories allows for
openness to the voice of the Spirit to come to them from outside the Pentecostal
community.

Pentecostals will
not limit the work of the Spirit to their community but recognize that God’s
prevenient grace has been bestowed upon all of humanity. Furthermore they fully
expect the Holy Spirit to be actively working upon and speaking into the lives
of all people, Christians and non-Christians. This underscores the importance
of the Holy Spirit being active upon people before the Pentecostal missionaries
arrive. Pentecostals, through their hospitable missionary outreach, have
developed relationships with people outside their community and have ‘discerned’
the presence of the Spirit in these ‘foreign’ communities.[lvii]
As a result, the Pentecostals will discern what the Spirit is saying to them
from outside their community, which may be both typical and yet surprising for
the Pentecostal community. In this way the Spirit may speak from outside the
Pentecostal community by means of speaking through Pentecostal missionaries,
evangelists, recent converts and those of us who engage in theological
discussions with others outside of our tradition. Once again the community,
Scripture and Spirit are all necessary participants in the making of theological
meaning with the community energized by the Spirit being the arena in which the
Scripture and the Spirit converge.

The Spirit’s Voice Comes In and Through the Scripture

Generally,
Pentecostals hold to a “high view” of Scripture. The Bible is understood to be
an authoritative and trustworthy testimony about the Living God produced by
humans that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Scripture is affirmed as the
sacred narrative of the Living God’s revelation to humanity and specifically to
the covenant community. Because of this belief, ‘Pentecostals regard the
Scripture as normative and seek to live their lives in light of its teaching.’[lviii]
Pentecostals read Scripture for more then just information; they read with a
desire to relationally know the living God and do the will of God. Reading
Scripture then is a means of grace for experiencing redemptive transformation.
Therefore Pentecostals, both laity and academicians, actively invite the Holy
Spirit to inspire the community and reveal meaningful understanding of
Scripture.

How does the
Spirit speak in and through the Scripture? The community must discern the Holy
Spirit’s voice, and the Holy Spirit must be granted an opportunity to be
actively involved in the hermeneutical process. As Thomas argues, the Holy
Spirit’s involvement in the interpretive process as narrated in Acts 15,
‘heavily influenced the choice and use of Scripture’ in resolving the thorny
issues concerning the Gentiles’ inclusion into the early Jewish Christian
community.[lix]
This indicates that the Holy Spirit’s presence was not passive but active in
guiding and directing the community’s engagement with Scripture. The
participants in the ‘Jerusalem Council’ could offer much Scriptural support
concerning God’s rejection of Gentiles, but not all of the Old Testament
supports such a notion. Hence when Scripture (both Old and New Testaments)
offer diverse and even contradictory information concerning a particular
practice or concern, the Spirit can direct the congregation through experience,
visions, gifts, and testimonies to a new theological understanding. This new
understanding is rooted in Scripture yet moves beyond it. The community, then,
must discern the Holy Spirit’s involvement in the present context of the
Christian community.

Pentecostals
affirm that the primary context for the interpretation of Scripture is the
believing community. Scripture as a grand metanarrative is celebrated as a gift
of God’s grace to the community. Personal faith in Jesus Christ as messiah is
affirmed as a necessary aspect of the entire interpretative process. The
interpretive concern of the community is to come to an understanding of what the
Spirit is saying to the community in and through the biblical text(s). The
Spirit has more to say than Scripture but it is understood to be scripturally
sound. Furthermore the reading of Scripture (both personal and communal) offers
a sacramental opportunity for the Spirit to work redemptively in the life of the
readers.[lx]

Conclusion

The Pentecostal
theological hermeneutic being advocated encourages a tridactic dialectical and
dialogical interdependent relationship between Scripture, Spirit and Community.
The Holy Spirit is the most significant person in the conversation. The model
finds biblical support in Acts 15 and is a hermeneutical strategy that is a
product of the Pentecostal identity. The particular method will be a
Narrative-Reader Response approach from a semiotic understanding of language.
The method, however, is not as important as the conversation that transpires
among the community as it engages the Scripture and as it discerns the Spirit.
The theological hermeneutic will be practiced by Pentecostal hermeneuts in
community seeking the creative guidance and input of the Holy Spirit. The
readers in community, the text, and the Holy Spirit are conversational
participants in the tridactic negotiation for theological meaning. Therefore,
this is a pneumatically grounded ecclesiastical community that opens itself up
to other communities (both Christian and non-Christian) who are willing to
dialogue with us as we seek to hear what the Spirit is saying.

[ii]
‘Canon and Charisma in the Book of Deuteronomy’ in Journal of
Pentecostal Theology 1 (1992), pp. 75-92.

[iii]
This paper is a condensed summarization with some additional information
of the sixth chapter of my recently published monograph, A
Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty First Century: Spirit, Scripture
and Community (London and New York; T&T Clark International 2004),
pp. 156-191.

[iv]
See Archer, A
Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty First Century,
chapters 3-5 for an analysis of Pentecostal hermeneutical concerns.

[v]
‘His’ is purposefully used to reiterate the male dominance of
Enlightenment interpretation that has argued for a scientific neutral
and objective method of interpretation.

[vi]
See Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory
(Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, second
edition). Also see MacIntyre’s sequel, Whose Justice? Which
Rationality (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press,
1988). MacIntyre’s primary concern has been to demonstrate that
‘dramatic narrative is the crucial form for an understanding of human
action’ and moral reasoning. Alasdair MacIntyre, ‘Epistemological
Crises, Dramatic Narrative, and the Philosophy of Science’ in Stanley
Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones (eds.), Why Narrative? Readings in
Narrative Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1989), p. 150.

[vii]
See John Christopher Thomas, ‘Women, Pentecostals and the Bible: An
Experiment in Pentecostal Hermeneutics’ in Journal of Pentecostal
Theology 5 (1994), pp.17-40. This hermeneutic is based upon Acts 15,
the Jerusalem Council, which is comprised of three primary components in
the theological discerning process. These components are the believing
community, the activity of the Holy Spirit and Scripture

[viii]
For the concept of ‘underdeterminate’ see Stephen E. Fowl, Engaging
Scripture: A Model for Theological Interpretation (Massachusetts:
Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p. 10. See also J. Severino Croatto,
Biblical Hermeneutics: Toward a Theory of Reading as the Production of
Meaning (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1987), for the notion of
the ‘production of meaning.’

[xii]
Edgar V. McKnight, Post-Modern Use of the Bible: The Emergence of
Reader-Oriented Criticism (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press,
1988). According to McKnight, ‘The postmodern perspective which allows
readers to use the Bible today is that of a radical reader-oriented
literary criticism, a criticism which views literature in terms of
readers and their values, attitudes, and responses. … A radical
reader-oriented criticism is postmodern in that it challenges the
critical assumption that a disinterested reader can approach a text
objectively and obtain verifiable knowledge by applying certain
scientific strategies. A radical reader-oriented approach sees the
strategies, the criteria for criticism and verification, the
“information” obtained by the process, and the use of such “information”
in light of the reader’, pp. 14-5.

[xvi]
Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretations
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970). Ricoeur argues
that ‘Hermeneutics seems to me to be animated by this double motivation:
willingness to suspect, willingness to listen; vow of rigor, vow of
obedience’, p.27.

[xvii]
Current articles dealing with Pentecostal hermeneutics with additional
bibliographical resources are Kenneth J. Archer, ‘Pentecostal
Hermeneutics: Retrospect and Prospect’ in Journalof
PentecostalTheology (April1996); Veli-Matti
Karkkainen, ’Pentecostal Hermeneutics in the Making: On the Way from
Fundamentalism to Postmodernism’ in The Journal of the European
Pentecostal Theological Association 28 (1998); see also The
Spirit and Church 2:1 (May 2000) which is dedicated to the topic
Pentecostal Hermeneutics and Chapter 5 of my A Pentecostal
Hermeneutic.

[xviii]
Terence Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1977), p. 124.
Hawkes points out that Europeans prefer semiology in regards to
Saussure’s coinage of the term whereas English speakers prefer semiotics
because of Peirce.

[xix]
See Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics chapter 4 for an
introduction, explanation and the diversity of Semiotics.

[xxix]
See Harry S. Stout, ‘Theological Commitment and American Religious
History‘ in Theological Education (Spring 1989), who demonstrates
that there is an inescapable relationship between the community of which
one belongs and the explanation of past history. His argument can be
extended to include biblical meaning.

[xxx]
See Sandra M. Schneiders, ‘Feminist Hermeneutics’ in Joel Green (ed.),
Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation (Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995). Schneiders writes,
‘Those who continue to hope that the biblical text is susceptibly of a
liberating hermeneutic must pass by the way of suspicion to retrieval.
Suspicion leads to ideology criticism. But ideology criticism is then
in the service of advocacy and reconstruction’, p. 352.

[xxxi]
See John Christopher Thomas, ‘Reading the Bible from within our
Traditions: A Pentecostal Hermeneutic as Test Case’ in Joel B. Green and
Max Turner (eds.), Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament
Studies and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan and
Cambridge, United Kingdom: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
2000), pp. 120-2.

[xxxii]
See Kenneth J. Archer, ‘Pentecostal Story: The Hermeneutical Filter for
the Making of Meaning’ in PNEUMA 26:1(Spring 2004), pp.
36-59, for an explanation of the Pentecostal story.

[xxxiii]
I am saying that the community requires the hermeneut to embrace the
‘Full Gospel’ which encourages one to anticipate and participate in
salvation, sanctification, healing, Spirit baptism while eagerly
awaiting the soon return of Jesus. The point is that one has a
particular relationship with Jesus and the community that is
experiential and is defined by the ‘Full Gospel’ message. The hermeneut
is never alone in the interpretive process.

[xxxvi]
By metanarrative, I am referring to a grand story by which human
societies and their individual members live and organize their lives in
meaningful ways. The Christian metanarrative refers to the general
Christian story about the meaning of the world and the God who created
it and humanity’s place in it. The Christian metanarrative is primarily
dependent on the Bible for this general narrative. For a basic outline
of the ‘Storyline’ of the Christian metanarrative, see Gabriel Fackre,
The Christian Story: A Narrative of Basic Christian Doctrine
(Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1996, third edition volume one). Fackre writes that
‘Creation, Fall, Covenant, Jesus Christ, Church, Salvation,
Consummation, … are acts in the Christian drama’ with the understanding
‘That there is a God who creates, reconciles, and redeems the word’ as
‘the “Storyline”’, pp. 8-9. See also Graig G. Bartholomew and Michael
W. Goheen, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical
Story (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2004).

[xxxviii]
Powell, What is Narrative Criticism?, pp. 16-21. Powell places
Reader Response Criticism into three categories: the reader over
the text, the reader with the text and, the reader in the
text. He argues that Narrative Criticism falls into the third category,
hence a more ‘objective’ interpretive theory. I am arguing that there is
much more overlap between Reader Response and Narrative Criticism.

[xl]
Stephen D. Moore, Literary Criticism and the Gospels: The Theoretical
Challenge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 73. Moore
correctly points out that Reader Response Criticism is not ‘a
conceptually unified criticism; rather it is a spectrum of contrasting
and conflicting positions’, p.72. Also Powell, What is Narrative
Criticism?, p. 21, who writes, ‘narrative criticism and dialectic
modes (‘with the text’) of reader response are most similar and they may
eventually become indistinguishable.’

[xli]
I recognize that the Bible contains many forms of genre with narrative
being the most prevalent. However, a few Bible critics recognize the
value of narrative, as it is a necessary backdrop to the non-narrative
portions of Scripture. See for example Norman R. Petersen,
RediscoveringPaul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul’s
Narrative World (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985) and Ben
Witherington III, Paul’s Narrative Thought World: The Tapestry of
Tragedy and Triumph (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox
Press, 1994). Narrative as a theological overarching category of all
Scripture necessitates one to locate a passage of a biblical text into
the Scripture’s dramatic story.

[xlii]
See Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), pp.161, 183-5.
Hays argues that ‘if we learned from Paul how to read Scripture, we
would read it primarily as a narrative of promise and election …
ecclesiocentrically… in the service of proclamation … as participants in
the eschatological drama of redemption.’ As this writer has
demonstrated the Pentecostal community has always read the Scripture ‘as
the people of the end time,’ from a narrative perspective of promise and
from within the community as a word for the present which requires the
interaction of the Holy Spirit.

[xliii]Echoes of Scripture, pp. 160, 166. See also McGrath, The
Genesis of Doctrine, p. 56.

[xlvii]
For example, Pentecostals who affirm the importance of women in pastoral
leadership look to other Scriptures as they resist certain texts of
terror—specifically 2 Timothy 2:11-12. Women who feel called to be in
leadership “testify” that the Spirit has called them and cite certain
Scriptures to support this claim. My point is that Scripture does not
call people into leadership ministry but the Spirit does and the Spirit
uses Scripture and Community in the process.

[xlviii]
I agree with Trevor Hart’s statement in his ‘Tradition, Authority, and a
Christian Approach to the Bible as Scripture’ in Joel B. Green and Max
Turner, eds., Between Two Horizons, p. 203, that the Holy Spirit
is not simply “an aid at getting at the meaning of Scripture” but
instead ‘the Spirit is God’s relatedness to us in the event of meaning
through which he addresses us.”

[xlix]
See the Gospel of John chapters 13-17, in Jesus’ farewell discourse, he
speaks of the importance of the Holy Spirit's ministry to the Christian
community and human society.

[liv]
Fowl, Engaging Scripture, correctly points out that ‘it is
important to recognize that the presence of miraculous signs is not a
straightforward event’, p. 104. The community must discern if the
miraculous sign is of the Holy Spirit and what the sign is signifying to
the community.

[lv]
Fowl, Engaging Scripture, p. 114. This writer agrees with Fowl
who argues that it is impossible in practice ‘to separate and determine
clearly whether a community’s scriptural interpretation is prior to or
dependent upon a community’s experience of the Spirit’, p. 114.